The Mother of Mess in Syria

The Mother of Mess in Syria

What a mess. The imperial cooks in Washington have turned poor Syria into a poison pit of warring factions, with disastrous results for all. Henry Kissinger once quipped that it is more dangerous being America’s ally than its enemy. A good example is how Washington used the Kurds in Syria to fight ISIS and then…

Zelenskii in Free Fall

Zelenskii in Free Fall

Well, that didn’t take too long. Let me summarize what just happened in the Ukraine. Everything was looking oh-so-promising and then suddenly… First, Trump, Macron and Merkel apparently told Zelenskii that he had to sign the so-called Steinmeier formula, which basically spells out the sequence of confidence-building and de-escalation measures foreseen by the Minsk Agreements….

‘Poor Little Israel’ Isn’t So Poor, Financially or Diplomatically

‘Poor Little Israel’ Isn’t So Poor, Financially or Diplomatically

One of the tropes Israel and its international phalanx of lobbyists has used since the state’s inception in 1948 is that “Poor Little Israel” requires Western money and diplomatic support because the small country is surrounded by hostile Arab countries. Neither of these contentions have ever been true. On August 7, 2019, the US Congressional…

Israel Prepares to Turn Bedouin Citizens Into Refugees in Their Own Country

Israel Prepares to Turn Bedouin Citizens Into Refugees in Their Own Country

The decades-long struggle by tens of thousands of Israelis against being uprooted from their homes – some for the second or third time – should be proof enough that Israel is not the western-style liberal democracy it claims to be. Last week 36,000 Bedouin – all of them Israeli citizens – discovered that their state…

Book Review: Greater Middle East Project of Chaos: The Management of Savagery

Book Review: Greater Middle East Project of Chaos: The Management of Savagery

Destination Afghanistan was known as the big easy back in the halcyon days of the late 1960s. Hippies from throughout the affluent West hitchhiked to the capital, Kabul, where crash pads and hashish were cheap, and the locals were tolerant. Life appeared to be mellow in the scenic shadow of the Hindu Kush Himalayans. That…